


After Five Years of Yearning

by FrenchScribbler



Series: How the lettuce family got bigger [8]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fluff, Hugs, Missing in Action, Post-Time Skip, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Relationship, Time-Skip, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchScribbler/pseuds/FrenchScribbler
Summary: Byleth has gone missing for five years while Seteth has been looking for her. He finally finds her in Garreg Mach, safe and sound, and fears she's just a dream. Her absence has made him realize how much she means to him.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Seteth, My Unit | Byleth/Seteth
Series: How the lettuce family got bigger [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762282
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	After Five Years of Yearning

**Author's Note:**

> And here we go with the post-timeskip.  
> I still tag "Pre-relationship" because theirs is still undefined though you can see it's beginning to become clear. At least on Seteth's side since the internal focalization is mostly on him.  
> I wasn't sure about tagging "Fluff" since I'm not really sure of what it means exactly but it looked like it matched this story when I looked into it.

The revelation ceremony had ended way differently than Rhea had planned. What had actually been revealed was the identity of the Flame Emperor: Edelgard.

Starting from there, events unfolded at exponential speed. She had been crowned Emperor of Adrestria and had declared war against the Church of Seiros. Soon after, her army was marching toward Garreg Mach, leaving little time for the monastery to prepare and evacuate civilians.

Because Seteth was a foresighted man, they didn’t lack supplies or weaponry. The reports he received from scouts spoke about a massive army. Though well situated in terms of topography, the monastery wasn’t a fortress, defending it wouldn’t be so easy, especially when Edelgard herself might have studied the surroundings when she was still a student. Garreg Mach needed much more manpower to face the Adrestrian army, which was probably the most powerful army in all Fódlan.

Rhea was ready to join the fight if necessary and she had already prepared her succession. If she was to fall in combat or get captured, she had asked for her responsibilities as leader of the Church of Seiros to be transmitted to Byleth. She had later confirmed Seteth’s doubts about Byleth’s birth, though not in details, and her link to the progenitor god. Rhea had tried to bring back Sothis into this world and was convinced she would ultimately come to save it through Byleth. However, Seteth was skeptical about the degree of success of her plan. Byleth had told him Sothis’ consciousness had vanished once she had gifted her powers.

On her side, Byleth talked to the students to prevent panic among their ranks. The Blue Lions already were a serious bunch with discipline and chivalry instilled into their minds since their youth, it was part of their culture, especially among the nobility. She also talked to the Golden Deers, who were willing to stay in Garreg Mach to protect the place but worried about the eventual invasion of their homeland if the Empire was to win. Edelgard had left without her classmates save Hubert who followed her like her shadow. The Black Eagles were surprised by this sudden situation. They wanted to protect the monastery but they were reticent about the idea of fighting their own country. At one point, they would have to choose if they wanted to go back home or betray their families.

On the day of the battle, Seteth made sure Flayn would be far from the front line. As a healer, she would be in a safe place, where she could escape easily. Having her fight in another war wasn’t something he was ready for. Last time, he had lost his wife and almost his daughter. But the reports had worried him even more by the day. The imperial army had used disguises as merchants to smuggle men in the areas around the monastery so their numbers were even superior to the ones the scouts had sent. Victory was unlikely. They would presumably fight for their lives. Seteth wanted to have faith in their abilities but he had to admit brutal, crushing force was indeed a good strategy for the Empire.

When she led her students outside to join their position to defend Garreg Mach, Byleth wore her usual poker face. She was used to danger and fighting for her life. Her calm demeanor was like a beacon to people who were afraid of the outcome of the battle, they thought she was acting this way out of confidence. After all, they had all heard about her skills, about her Crest, about the Sword of the Creator hanging on her hip, about the faith the archbishop had in her.

She was about to follow her students when Seteth grasped her arm. She stopped and turned to look at him. Almost nobody was there; the few people running around were too busy to see he was taking her hand.

“What is it?” she asked, looking into his eyes. “This is unlike you.”

“I know. I just want to make sure you will come back.”

“Are you worried?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “They will use overwhelming force against us. Edelgard herself will probably lead the way to the area you will be protecting with Rhea and your students.”

“We’re well prepared, we won’t let them take this place.”

“Don’t let them take you either.”

“I won’t,” she asserted while squeezing his hand. “It’s a promise.”

Those were the last words they had exchanged together before she went missing. Byleth and her group had won against Edelgard’s squadron but imperial reinforcements were overwhelming, as Seteth had feared. They even used Demonic Beasts when Rhea had been left with no other choice but to fight in her other form. As the Immaculate One, Rhea could crush many imperial soldiers at the same time but it seemed Edelgard and her allies had foreseen this situation.

After the battle, Rhea had disappeared, as well as Byleth, and Garreg Mach and the villages nearby had been lost and abandonned. Survivors among the Knights of Seiros and their allies had scattered before regrouping weeks after to rallying points that had been decided beforehand.

During the following years, Edelgard’s invasion of Fódlan had been less brutal than the Battle of Garreg Mach. After all, she had lost many men that day despite her victory. While Claude, who had succeeded his grandfather, had been able to keep the Leicester Alliance neutral in the war, the situation had dramatically changed in Faerghus. Soon after Dimitri had come back to Fhirdiad, traitors had conspired to accuse him of the murder of his uncle and sentence him to death. The Blaiddyd territory became the Faerghus Dukedom under the rule of the Empire and their ally Cornelia. The west territories bent the knee to the Empire but the eastern territories headed by the Gautier, Fraldarius, Galatea and Charon families strongly opposed Cornelia’s leadership. As a way to strengthen morale, Seteth made sure to visit every church in Faerghus to comfort the people and remind them the Church of Seiros was still fighting the Empire.

Almost five years had passed in this way. Seteth was weary of this war left into a stalemate. The Adrestian Empire was powerful but people were still fighting to defend their homelands from annexation. Edelgard’s eventual goals were the unification of Fódlan under her banner and the disbandment of the Church of Seiros. Though Seteth didn’t always agree with Rhea, he could but admit the church’s presence in Fódlan had fostered peace and supported its people in many ways for a very long time.

Encamped at about a couple of days of Garreg Mach, Seteth, Flayn and a few knights were spending the night in a forest that was safe from imperial patrols because it was near the Alliance border. Seteth was sitting by the camp fire to write letters to Catherine and Alois to report the situation in the last town he had visited. The night was cold but the fire was keeping him warm.

Suddenly, Flayn stormed out of her tent to sit by his side and expressed herself in a hasty way.

“Dear Brother, we must to go to Garreg Mach,” she insisted with a resolute look on her face. “The millennium festival was supposed to be tomorrow.”

“I’m afraid there won’t be any festival, Flayn,” he answered patiently. “There is nothing to celebrate.”

“I’m telling you we made a promise!”

“A promise?”

Seteth remembered the last promise he had allowed himself to believe. In the entrance hall of Garreg Mach, Byleth had promised him the Empire wouldn’t get her. She had been supposed to come back to him but she had not. In the last few years, he had sent knights in search of Rhea and also in search of her. He was convinced the Empire had made Rhea their captive, she was too important to kill and too obstinate to die. Or that was what he wished to believe. Concerning Byleth, his instinct told him she was still alive, she couldn’t have died so easily with the gift of the progenitor god. Perhaps she had been taken prisoner somewhere. But she had even escaped that supposedly unescapable spell cast by Solon. Where could she be? What could she be doing? Those questions had been haunting him for years. He refused to believe she had perished in any way.

“Are you listening, Brother?” Flayn scolded him in her implausible angry little voice.

“What promise?”

“We promised to go back to the monastery for the millennium festival. _All of us_. Even the Professor!”

“Flayn, the situation has changed…”

“Let’s go anyway, Brother. I promised it too and I will certainly not break my promise because you say so. We’re leaving for the monastery tomorrow.”

Then, she stood up and announced her decision to the knights before going back to her tent. Flayn was adamant in keeping her promise but Seteth knew why she was holding onto it so faithfully. She probably hoped to see Byleth back on the promised day. He envied her for her blind optimism. However, he knew he had to comply or she would take the risk to go by herself, which was out of the question.

That’s how they arrived at Garreg Mach three days later, a bit later than expected because of a skirmish on the road with thieves, which were pretty common in the area even since the beginning of the war. The familiar sight of the monastery filled Seteth with nostalgia and despondency. The place was damaged and vandalized but not empty. He had heard of a band of thugs who had made the abandoned place their own but he was seeing members of the church and Faerghus soldiers. Gilbert came to meet them at the foot of the monastery’s steps. He proudly announced Dimitri was alive, as well as Byleth. Flayn was overjoyed and happy to rub it on Seteth’s face. She had been right to insist in coming to Garreg Mach to fulfil her promise. Seteth could hardly believe it but Gilbert led them to the Knights Hall. At the other side of the room, a tall, broad one-eyed blonde man was brooding next to a poker-faced woman with green hair and eyes. They were alive. _Byleth was alive_. She finally saw them walking into the room when Flayn ran to her and took her hands in hers with the happiest face Seteth had seen in a long time. When he faced her, Byleth curved the corners of her lips into a fleeting smile and Gilbert started the meeting as soon as the former Blue Lions students joined them so they could sum up the situation and explore their options.

Seteth’s office had been left untouched. Thieves weren’t usually interested in books and accounting documents. Dust and spiders were the only things that had changed. A bit of tidying and cleaning and it would be as if he had never left.

The cathedral, however, had taken heavy damage. Half the roof had become a gigantic pile of rubble upon which the sunlight was resting. Fortunately, the statues of the Four Saints had been spared. He raised his head to watch the statue of Saint Cethleann and hoped Flayn would be safe again between the walls of the monastery. Then, he turned his eyes to the statue of Saint Cichol and felt he had failed his duty. Despite all his efforts, he had been powerless against the Empire and running away had been his only option in the end. He was back to Garreg Mach but there was still a war outside its walls. He sighed and left the cathedral to inspect another place.

In a corridor of the reception hall, Seteth found a secret door thieves had apparently tried to open. It was damaged but the mechanism had been built to resist intrusion. It was made of two doors. The first one was easy to open but opening the second one required the first one to be closed, which was more difficult because it required to touch in the right order a series of stones that looked very similar to the rest of the wall. Because of the thieves’ idiotic insistence, the mechanism was so damaged the first door couldn’t be closed anymore. The small space between the doors just looked like a useless nook in the corridor.

While he was trying to find a way to fix it, Seteth heard steps nearby. He knew those steps for having heard them many times in the past. They were Byleth’s. Taking advantage of his small hiding place where nobody would notice him because it was partly hidden behind a piece of fabric, he waited for her to walk by him to pull her by the arm. As soon as he had done that, he found himself in a familiar situation, pinned against the wall with the edge of a knife against his throat. She still had good reflexes. Like last time, Byleth looked very surprised when she recognized him. Though he had felt embarrassed and a bit afraid the first time he had been in this situation, Seteth was now so filled with relief to see her alive to threaten him he didn’t wait any more second to take her in his arms. Disconcerted, she dropped her knife in a loud metallic sound on the cold ground.

“You’re alive,” he whispered in her ear, still hugging her tightly. “You really are. This is not a dream.”

“You’re not dreaming,” she confirmed as she hesitatingly clung on his clothes. “I promised you.”

“Five years is an awfully long time to keep such a promise.”

He could feel her warmth against him, her hair on his cheek, her hands on his back. He could hear the sound of her breathing, the factual tone of her voice. He hadn’t lost hope but he had stopped yearning to hold her again against him like that, for his own sanity. Every time she had appeared in his dreams, the reality had crushed his spirits tenfold after waking up.

“Where were you?”

“I was sleeping.”

He took her by the shoulders and stared at her. Telling jokes with such seriousness. She still had to work on her comical effects.

“I’m not joking,” he warned her.

“Me neither. I was really sleeping. For five years. Though for me, it’s as if the battle happened a few days ago. I fell off a cliff after helping Rhea and I woke up in a village down the river five years later.”

He could see in her eyes she was telling the truth. Her story was very strange but it wasn’t so much anymore when knowing who she was. Her power had saved her somehow. It was unfair though. He had endured her absence for five years and she hadn’t felt them pass.

Gazing upon her face, he stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. She hadn’t changed one bit. Neither did he. Her students had grown up though. Seeing them again as adults had reminded him of those years passed with only knights and Flayn for company.

Before the war, Seteth knew his feelings for her had already grown before he would even realize it. He couldn’t say when it had exactly begun. Was it before kissing her for the first time? Or after? Or perhaps way before that when he had seen her in a dream? Maybe when their eyes met in the corridor and he had lost his words? Could it be possible it was the day he met her and got intrigued about her expressionless face and empty eyes? Right now, in front of him, her face didn’t show much but her eyes were looking at him with curiosity as he had fallen silent, deep in thoughts. _When_ wasn’t so important after all.

“Are you alright?” Byleth asked, a bit concerned about his silence or perhaps about the way he was looking at her.

“I am now.”

Wishing to enjoy this fleeting moment during which they wouldn’t be disturbed, he hugged her again, holding her like a precious treasure. How did this woman come to take so much place in his heart?

Seteth couldn’t get to sleep that night. Turning and turning again in this bed he hadn’t slept in for five years had worn out his patience so he got up and put on a long, large cream silk robe to cover his back. The cold didn’t bother him much but winter nights were rather chilly. He adjusted his linen pants so the fabric wouldn’t touch the ground and shrugged when he watched his bare feet. There was no need to put on shoes since he didn’t plan to leave the dormitory. He only wanted to take a walk along the corridors to refresh him before going back to bed.

The familiar walls around him felt strange. He only needed to get used to the idea he was back at Garreg Mach. Without really thinking, he walked up the stairs that led to Rhea’s appartments. Her door was closed. Sometimes, he would hear her sing her mother’s song on the balcony opposite her room. But she wouldn’t sing anymore, not until they’d find her. Seteth turned to the place where she used to sing and found Flayn, who was gazing at the night sky with a blanket around her shoulders.

“Flayn?” he called before joining her. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“I was thinking about Rhea. I hope she’s okay.”

“You should be in bed right now. You’ll catch a cold if you stay here too long.”

“You’re the one to talk, Father. Your robe is open.”

“You shouldn’t call me like that,” he hastily reminded her as he folded both side of his robe on his bare chest.

“Nobody’s here, Father,” she assured with a sweet smile. “Don’t worry. You can’t sleep either?”

“I guess I need to get used to this place again after being on the road for years. Do you need me to get you some tea?”

“No, thank you. I asked the Professor to stay with me until I fell asleep but she fell asleep first. I guess she can sleep anywhere.”

“You made her stay with you?”

Seteth gave her a disapproving look but he had to admit he felt a bit jealous. Of which one he was actually jealous was uncertain though. He missed the days Flayn was still a child and would use any excuse to sleep in his bed with him and his wife. But he also wished to have Byleth by his side when he would wake up in the morning, to admire her face, to kiss her lips, to— get his pleasant thoughts interrupted by Flayn.

“I can hear steps, Brother. I’m going to bed, don’t stay outside too long,” she asked of him before leaving.

He gazed at the moon, finding this night more silent than the ones he used to spend in this place. Gilbert expected Faerghus loyalist troops to come in the following days and Seteth had sent messages to Knights of Seiros for them to hurry back to the monastery. The usual sounds would be back soon enough.

“Seteth?” Byleth’s voice called behind him. “Aren’t you cold up there?”

He turned and saw her walk in his direction to join him.

“Not much. Have you seen Flayn?”

“We crossed path on the stairs. She told me you were there. I was supposed to stay with her until she fell asleep but I did first. She had left her room when I woke up.”

“She’s very happy to see you again,” he explained with a smile. “I apologize she made you stay with her.”

“I didn’t mind. And you’ll have an even better reason to apologize if you catch a cold like that.”

He was unable to determine if Byleth was saying that as a fact or out of worry for him but her words made him smile. He stepped closer, opened both side of his robe and folded them around her as he pressed her against his bare chest.

“I won’t get cold like that,” he justified with tenderness in his voice. “And neither will you. Are you cold now?”

“You’re warm,” she answered after a few seconds.

However, he shuddered when she hugged him back by slipping her arms under his robe to put her cold hands on his back.

“Your hands are freezing, though.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No, keep them there. They’ll warm up in no time.”

At that moment, Seteth hadn’t felt so great in years. Holding Byleth in his arms, against his skin with her own arms around him, could almost erase the time he had spent craving for such moment. She remained still, her cheek against his chest. She seemed to focus on something.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” she noticed without moving.

“I guess it is,” he answered in surprise.

“Mine doesn’t do that. It feels so strange. Doesn’t it inconvenience you?”

“It’s as natural as breathing so it’s easy to forget about it, except when it’s pounding, of course.”

Byleth was listening to his heartbeat. It inevitably made him nervous, though she was probably only doing it out of curiosity. He could feel his heart beating even louder.

Seteth grasped her chin and tilted it up to look into her eyes. She was beautiful under the moonlight. He traced the outline of her lower lip with the tip of his thumb, which made her open her lips. Perhaps he couldn’t sleep that night because he was afraid she was just a dream and she would have vanished in the morning.

However, she definitely proved herself to be real when she suddenly stood on tiptoe to steal a kiss from him. It was the first time she kissed him first and he didn’t expect it. He was about to kiss her but she beat him to it. Seteth could barely hide his surprise.

“You’re still having a nice expression when you’re blushing,” she observed with a hint of a smile.

“You did it on purpose?” he asked in a troubled voice.

“Maybe.”

Unable to contain his amazement at this woman who was always finding ways to fluster him, whether it was on purpose or not, Seteth let a clumsy smile appear on his face. He wondered if he would ever be able to witness the same flushed expression on her face one day.

“Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep too?” she teasingly suggested when he placed his arm behind her shoulders to lead her inside.

“Would you be ready to stay until morning then?”

She stared at him with curiosity as they stopped in front of the stairs that led to Seteth’s dormitory. He placed his arm round her waist and leaned over to speak into her ear.

“I would definitely not let you sleep though,” he teased in his turn.

Byleth’s poker face changed into a slight awkward expression that amused him and made him smile. She would sometimes make such a face though it wasn’t much visible. However, he still didn’t know exactly how he was able to make her show such a face. Maybe she would tell him one day.

“Those stairs over there will lead you to a closer place to your room,” he pointed with his finger at another set of stairs on the other side of the corridor.

Seteth watched her leave and fought against his wish to grab her arm to make her stay with him. But they both needed the rest because they would be at a war meeting first thing in the morning. He also wanted to tell her his feelings for her but even though he was a writer on the side, he was still unable to find the words and form them on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> The next one (I'm still unsure about writing it so don't hate me if I don't, it will depend on my inspiration) might be a shorter one with an external focalization on Byleth with her students. I wish to keep what's in her mind a mystery x)
> 
> Then, the "true" next story will go back to Seteth's point of view and their growing ambiguous relationship. However, I won't be able to write it before next weekend :/


End file.
